VATICAN (CWN): The expletive babbling mayor of Davao City and presidential candidate, Rodrigo Duterte, sent an apology to Pope Francis for his unpublishable tirade against him for holding up traffic when he visited Manila in January last year.

And to his apparent delight, he has received a response from Archbishop Angelo Becciu, the under-secretary of state at the Vatican, which says the pope appreciates the sentiments of his apology.

“The Holy Father offers the assurance of his prayers for you, as he invokes upon you the divine blessings of wisdom and peace,” the archbishop wrote.

The delighted politician is now boasting about his letter on the campaign trail and getting maximum mileage out of it, keeping up the intrigue by refusing to make its content public.